RTÉ axes ‘Morning Edition’ after two years

RTÉ has axed Morning Edition, the television news show it launched less than two years ago. The programme will complete its current run this year and will not return in 2015, the broadcaster said.

The decision “has been made due to ongoing financial pressures”, RTÉ said in a statement. It is understood staff were informed of the decision earlier today.

Keelin Shanley, who presented the programme since its launch, will become the host of Radio 1's The Late Debate from January, in addition to her role as presenter of RTÉ One's The Consumer Show.

RTÉ said other staff would continue to work with RTÉ News and would be redeployed within its online and television news operations. RTÉ News Now will continue to broadcast morning news bulletins, it added.

Morning Edition, which has gone out live five days a week from 9am-11am, began in January 2013.

Edited by Anthony Murnane, the show aimed for an "intelligent but accessible" tone, with Mr Murnane citing NBC's Today and BBC Breakfast as "the feel" that he was aspiring to replicate on the programme.

It was also hoped that its mix of news, sport, business and entertainment would help RTÉ lure viewers away from TV3’s daytime audience. However, it secured average ratings of just 18,600 in its first week and struggled to gain significant traction.

The two-hour duration of the show and the nature of its format meant it would have had a higher total audience “reach”, a measure that counts everybody who tunes in to a programme even just for a few minutes.

RTÉ said the current series, which began after a summer break, typically had a reach of 75,000 a day on RTÉ One.

Budgets at RTÉ remain constrained by falling licence fee income and increased competition in the advertising market.